Furutech Discussion

Too funny. Their website used to mention which pairing is best for Naim but it was all over the place. I’ve heard the Kanta line (newer offerings since the merger) and they sounded pretty good if that helps. I recently heard the Diablo standpoints with the new classic 300 series and it sounds good as well but I was there for the 300 series not speakers.

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I’m going to start with a little background on my kit/listening environment to get some context as I post about what I’ve experienced as to help other deicide if some of the changes I’ve made & what I’ve experienced may be applicable to them as well.

First I will say the changes I’ve made so far have really been an eye opener in how important the power supply is in relation to how much performance your able to achieve from your kit. On top, one of the other most critical pieces & which is often most overlooked is the listening room itself. I see lots of nice looking rooms, with excellent kit that I often think how much performance the owner is missing due to the listening space.

My previous listening room had lots of soft furnishings & some acoustic treatments (that I’ve since discovered were compromised), I thought this was a pretty good sounding room & I was getting most of the performance from my kit, I was wrong. I’ve since moved to a dedicated listening room, it was constructed with Rockwool soundproofing insulation, soundproof drywall, sonopan, MLV (mass loaded vinyl), dampening on duct work, mufflers on HVAC runs, etc. I have a dedicated 12awg, cryo treated power supply. Currently have 6, 5.5" thick acoustic panels on the side walls, 2 6.5" thick panels on the front wall, one large 7.5" thick panel on the real wall, 2 16" ASC super tube trap in the front corners, two rear traps 16" depth in the rear corners. I still plan to add some diffusion on the front wall & possible treatment on the ceiling @ the first reflection point.

I don’t have golden ears, in the past some changes I made weren’t all that obvious, with the new treated room, even very small changes become very apparent. In the past I had a harshness that was mostly noticeable on digital & again typically more so an issue on the poorer the quality of the recording. I thought this was just a digital thing & was always adding gold connectors, which seemed to help this. What I found is that once in the new treated space, this harshness was greatly reduced, even poor recording sounded far more listenable. I realized a lot of the harshness I was previously hearing, was still the room itself (& likely some portion being improved by the dedicated line). Before anything, I know not all room treatments are aesthetically pleasing & its not the easiest to do in a shared space but if you can work in some properly designed treatments (ie acoustic panels 4" deep at min & some proper bass traps), you should be rewarded with greatly improved sound. Some companies such as Vicoustics make treatments that are visually more appealing & others do digital printing if you want to disguise the panel.

When I talk about burn in, I know some here will greatly oppose what I’m saying based on some of the recent discussions on here so thought I would post this first. In the past I had not really experienced long break in/burn in times (not to say it doesn’t exist, I keep an open/neutral opinion) but it seemed rather curious when people talked about 100’s of hours for things to start sounding good. Anything I liked sounded good from the start, maybe had some up & downs for 10-20hrs (includes mechanical things like speakers & cartridges) & then was good to go. Now most of my changes were in my previous space so maybe the new dedicated room would have different results. I’m also fully aware of our brains/ears ability to adapt to sound & have experienced this numerous times myself, so I’m aware of this impact. But with the Furutech Rhodium components, the run in really is in the 100’s of hours, it is not a linear progression of sounding better each time you listen, I will detail more each specific item but every night I went to listen I thought to myself, what am I going to hear tonight, as some nights it was the same as the night before & others, completely different. I don’t want this to be a topic where we debate if burn in is real, so if you don’t think its a thing, please discuss elsewhere & also, highly recommend you try some Furutech rhodium to see if it has any change on your opinion.

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I didn’t know if this would be against forum rules as well but from my experimenting I have found that plugs/outlets with non pure copper seem to add a harshness to the sound, that once replaced with pure copper base metal is removed. This had me curious, as you say the North American PL just has a basic Wattgate plug that I’ve found adds a harshness to the sound. PL’s that use a shuko have rhodium ends, this has got me really curious about swapping the WG end for the FI-50 NCF R.

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Yeah not sure if this comes under “power” so my apologies to the moderator. I think I’ll delete the post

shhh, but let me know. (Man these things are expensive)

Oh, it’s been just for fun, you are absolutely right!:))

And not so much at all anymore these days.

Ooo Oooo Yummy, do we have another Bussman thread (saga) coming.

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haha, not from me anyway (sorry!:))

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I mean the old models…

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Hi @marcusman If you can test the e-TP609 power distributor, I would be very interested in the result and your impressions. I myself use the (cheaper) Furutech e-TP60E NCF, which is still quite new on the market as an NCF variant. The e-TP609 is a bit older and also much more expensive (2’400 Euro compared to 550 Euro for the TP60E NCF). I also think that Furutech products can basically be used independently of each other and a power distributor does not necessarily need a Furutech wall socket. However, I also think that Furutech has developed its own approach and that different elements can be combined well and sensibly (wall socket, power distributor and power cables). For tuning, Furutech also offers the NCF Clear Line “AC Power Supply Optimizer”, which can be used in empty slots in power distributors or wall sockets. I was rather sceptical until now, because I had tried an IFI AC iPurifier some time ago, which had no positive audible effect in my system. But now I have seen the video of “Pursuit Perfect System” on Youtube, which made me think (Title: Does Power Matter for Sound Quality ?? Furutech NCF Clear Line Review).

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Correct.

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Yes of course I will. The bad news is my hifi budget is blown(just purchased a Farad Super3 power supply) and if I borrow the e-TP609 power distributor at home I know that I won’t send it back so my Credit Card has to be ready! Translation, I’m broke until payday lol.

The Farad PS really got me on this “Power trip” to be honest.

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Not sure I understand the reply? If your implying just because a system is expensive & resolving/transparent, it sounds terrible, well that is an even worse blanket statement then your first one.

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For power I use Shunyata. No reason to use anything else

I must also recommend Isol-8 power distributors in the similar price range. Quality made, great sounding products.

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Did not work so well for me on the NC250, but good for the sources (222)

Furutech news (from MCRU) is a 15% price increase as of 9th of October 2023.

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Glade they work for you but not really relevant as this is a discussion on Furutech. I have avoided Shunyata, their CEO, to put it politely appears to be not a nice human.

Yes, believe this is a worldwide increase, ours have already happened back on Oct 1st.

Okay so on to what actually started me a the most recent journey of swapping Furutech components. In the past, I used a good grade (all brass no steel version) Hubbell outlet that was cryo treated & generally regarded as a good budget friendly upgrade from the builder grade stuff. These were installed in both my wall & my powerbar. Years back, speaking to my dealer about outlets he mentioned that while the cryo Hubbells were an upgrade, the top of the line Furutech GTX-D NCF R is a massive step up in comparison. To be honest a was rather weary of this statement, the swapping of the Hubbells seemed to be an improvement but nothing earth shattering, so wasn’t sure if the GTX’D’s were that good or he just liked selling $300+ outlets (I’m in Canada so any pricing is our local price). I used the Hubbells for years, without much thought.

So as I was finishing up the listening space, thought with all the costs of this room, maybe I should see what the best wall outlet would be. I did a lot of reading & there was just so much consistent positive feedback for the GTX-D NCF R I thought I would give it a go. I listened to the new room for ~6 months with a builder grade wall outlet (still feeding my powerbar with cryo Hubbells) & as mentioned above, was sounding excellent. Made the swap of the wall outlets, was expecting an upgrade in resolution but was a bit concerned that it would be brighter sounding. I sat in shock for the whole evening, not believe what I was hearing, I couldn’t understand how an outlet could possibly have that much impact on sound. As expected there was far more resolution/transparency, timbre was more accurate & not only was the top end not harsher/brighter, it was actually smoother sounding. I’m not sure if this is mainly from removing the brass/steel, etc & instead having pure copper based contacts or if its the NCF material removing the harshness (or probably a combo of both), but whatever it was, it most definitely was a surprising result.

The outlet sounded excellent from the start, there were some ups & down but probably ~ 2weeks & it stabilized. My dealer offers a burn in service for these, which I opted for as it was said to greatly improve the amount of run in time required based on my findings with other rhodium Furutech components, this is the case & worthwhile doing. If you can’t get it burnt in & don’t want to listen to the swings in tonal balance, have some other heavy load device plugged into it first to run it in before listening to it.

One of the other big benefits of this outlet when it comes to the North American version is it doesn’t scratch/damage male plugs like typical wall outlets do, gold connectors are fragile & while more durable the rhodium ends can be very expensive so damaging them is the last thing you want to do.

If you just want to make one change & see if rhodium/NCF is worthwhile in your kit, I’d recommend swapping the wall outlet first. This should have the biggest impact. When you look at the GTX-D NCF, it is extremely well built but for $300 vs $2 for standard grade (~$50 here now for a cryo Hubbell), it seemed hard to justify. But after hearing its impact on sound, it was probably the best bang for the $ upgrade I’ve ever done. How this transfers to others setups, I can’t say. Obviously it was a huge bottleneck for me. It not only greatly improved all those hifi aspects people chase but was far more involving/emotional & musical at the same time. It impressed me so much that I added a second one in my powerbar that feeds my phono stage & DAC. I also added the matching NCF Rhodium IEC inlet on the powerbar for the anticipated wall to powerbar powercord swap.

As said above its best to keep mating connectors in matching plating. Furutech does make some lower cost rhodium outlets & while I haven’t listened to them, from everything that I’ve read they aren’t voiced the same as the NCF stuff & they are likely to be leaner/brighter sounding, especially the ones that use phosphor bronze as a base material. My advise if you want to splurge & go rhodium, go right to the NCF version.

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I concur. I installed Furutech NCF outlets (GTX DR NCF duplex receptacle, GTX Wall Frame, and Outlet Cover 106 NCF) two years ago, and it was possibly the best upgrade I have ever made, at reasonable cost.

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